A new try for library ballot

Albany voters will get the chance to vote on a slimmed-down spending plan

By JORDAN CARLEO-EVANGELIST Staff writer

Published 12:02 am, Monday, July 18, 2011

ALBANY -- Voters will get a second pass at the Albany Public Library's budget on Tuesday, two months after rejecting the first spending plan amid anger about the size of the proposed tax increase.

The $8.8 million proposed budget cuts nearly $718,000 from the plan residents rejected by 139 votes in May and would raise residential property taxes an estimated 15 percent -- or about $28 more next year on a house assessed at $150,000.

Some of those savings come at the expense of hours at the main library on Washington Avenue, which would be cut by seven to 62 a week. Hours at the six neighborhood branches would remain the same.

More Information

The revised spending plan also cuts $372,675 from the initial budget by filling fewer vacant jobs, library spokeswoman Stephanie Simon said, and by spending $32,428 less on books.

"We're trying to be as cost-effective and efficient as possible," library Director Carol Nersinger said.

If the plan passes, the new residential tax rate would be $1.45 per $1,000 of assessed value.

Turning out in the largest numbers in years, voters rejected the library board's first $9.5 million budget, which represented a 12.1 percent jump in spending over last year -- an increase fueled largely, officials said, by the costs of operating the library's five new and renovated branches.

Library boosters aggressively sold the plan as necessary to maintaining the system's $29 million investment in its new libraries, which expanded library space by 42 percent and included two brand-new branches on Henry Johnson Boulevard and New Scotland Avenue.

But angry homeowners panned the increase as ill-timed and suspect ahead of the state's impending two percent property tax cap, passed last month by the Legislature, that will drastically limit the library's ability to raise taxes in future years.

Chastened by the defeat, the elected members of library board wrestled with how much to reduce the proposed budget, ultimately settling on the $8.8 million plan that board President Dennis Gaffney called "a good but difficult compromise" that balances "what the library needs to function well against what people could afford."

Technically, voters are only be asked to approve the proposed $6.2 million operational tax levy. A second defeat would force the library to revert to last year's $5.2 million levy and prompt much deeper cuts, including potentially shuttering all libraries on weekends and cuts to as many as one-third of the library's 130 full- and part-time jobs.

Nersinger said that, on balance, the costs of the library are a bargain when the free programming for children and those seeking jobs in the stalled economy are taken into account.

"If you look at the programming schedule of all the activities that are available for free for kids and adults, it's amazing," she said.

Voting will take place between 7 a.m. and 9 p.m. Tuesday at the same polling locations residents use during the spring school budget vote.